It’s hard to imagine a more fraught combination for what was supposed to be a fun Friday night: Seattle’s Pride celebration will feature a World Cup match on June 26 between Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, and Egypt, where homosexual activity is punishable by up to three years in prison.  
When FIFA’s schedulers announced the Pride Match pairing after December’s draw, it felt a little like a sick joke.

I dreamed of the mountains again
and felt the rising joy
as the road wound upward
through the dark woods
then villages rank with silage
and spattered with cow manure
all the needs of the body
I didn’t know any better
geraniums a vibration
against the ancient chalets
no one else around
the clattering of water
in log troughs unheard
at that hour of afternoon
and I felt the names on my tongue
Huémoz Chésières Barboleusaz
as the view opened out
with the high snowfields beyond
almost too bright to be

As Democratic heretics go, Representative Dan Goldman isn’t guilty of many crimes against his party. He initially won election to the House after prosecuting the first impeachment of President Trump (whom he now calls a “fascist”), and during two terms, he has voted overwhelmingly with Democratic leaders—even swinging to their left by backing Medicare for All and the abolition of ICE. Goldman isn’t tainted by scandal, nor is he on death’s doorstep; at 50, he’s pretty young for Congress.

In a typical year, the process of bringing a new seasonal flu shot to market is one of the United States’ most predictable vaccine routines. This, however, is not a typical year.
Vaccine manufacturers have prepared updated versions of the annual flu shot, as they normally do. The FDA has green-lighted those recipes, as it normally does.

In a field outside of Kyiv last weekend, a van was parked discreetly behind some trees. Inside the van there were no passenger seats, just a long desk, two office chairs, two laptops, extra screens. Outside appearances to the contrary, this was a mobile drone-interceptor base, one of hundreds of similar vehicles now scattered around Ukraine. It’s also part of something much bigger: a set of technological advances that have changed the war with Russia, and maybe all wars, forever.